TV: Petition aimed at saving HBO’s gay show

I really am sorry to hear that HBO has cancelled “Looking.” That said, I’m afraid the decision was inevitable, although in the wake of the decision, an effort has been launched to get HBO to change its mind.

The premium cable channel announced that after two seasons, the half-hour drama series about gay men in San Francisco would not return for a third season, but the story of young, wide-eyed game designer Patrick and his friends will be finalized in a forthcoming special.

The show, which was created by Michael Lannan and filmed on location in San Francisco, had a lot of promise when it premiered in January 2014. The city of San Francisco was as much a main character as Patrick (Jonathan Groff), Agustin (Frankie J. Alvarez) and Dom (Murray Bartlett). The three men were credible and likable as they sorted out life and love in their own individual ways. The first season, for the most part, delivered on the show’s initial promise. The second season, though, was troublesome.

Lannan had created fascinating characters but didn’t really seem to know how to move them forward. So he resorted to throwing monkey wrenches into their lives and relationships. Nothing was so wrong that it couldn’t be fixed, but essentially, Lannan made his characters do things that were not true to their nature. Patrick, most of all, became somewhat insufferable as he self-destructively ruined his relationship with barber Richie (Raul Castillo).

The bigger issue, though, was that by manipulating the characters so badly, Lannan made it impossible for a general audience to care much about the show. Even some gay viewers found the second season tiresome and stopped watching. But to survive, the show needed to appeal to general audiences — not at all by toning down the gay thing, but, rather, through the one thing that has hooked viewers since the dawn of TV: Characters they could care about.

I stopped caring much about the characters, but watched the show anyway, mostly to see places in San Francisco I walk by every day.

The LGBT community should not look at this as any kind of dismissal of its value as an audience for HBO. The cancellation is merely what happens when a show doesn’t pull enough viewers to make it worthwhile to continue. The same thing happened with the equally fine comedy drama “Enlightened,” created by Laura Dern and Mike White. I applaud Lannan, Andrew Haigh and the superb cast for what they did and what they hoped to do. Much of it worked and “Looking” has earned its place as an example of quality, groundbreaking television.

A group of fans has already launched a petition, asking HBO to reconsider.

“For two seasons Looking has stirred real feelings and started important conversations about what it means to be gay in America today,” said Ian Grady, who is based in Los Angeles. “Without ‘Looking,’ there will be a void in the current television world.”

Grady said the series is important to the LGBT community because it “offers the truest representation” of the community on TV.

“These are important stories, if not always easy or perfect ones, and HBO is uniquely situated to keep sharing them,” Grady said in a statement. “I hope they’ll reconsider the decision to cancel and keep putting these characters, and other LGBT characters, out there for all to see.”
If you’d like to sign the petition, go here

Personally, I of course would support the petition, but I’d add a clause: Fix the show’s problems to help make it worthy of a large enough audience to keep it on the air.